US military launches coordinated media strike against American TV host

Michael Ginsberg
The Daily Caller
Fri, 12 Mar 2021 18:10 UTC

© The Daily Caller

"Press Secretary Smites Fox Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military," a Department of Defense headline read Thursday.

"I want to be very clear right up front, that the diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths," Pentagon press secretary and former CNN commentator John Kirby said during a Thursday briefing. "I've seen it for myself in long months at sea and in the combat waged by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen it up on Capitol Hill just this past month. And I see it every day here right at the Pentagon."

Kirby was responding to comments made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who said during his March 9 show that Biden's Department of Defense is more focused on woke adventurism than winning wars.

Carlson noted that the Department of Defense is creating body armor and flight suits for pregnant women, and is planning to change female hairstyle requirements. He also railed against the Chief of Naval Operations' addition of the book How To Be Antiracist, by American University professor Ibram X. Kendi, to the Navy's official reading list. Columbia University professor John McWhorter described Kendi's arguments as "facile and subjective."

"I can't for the life of me understand why [Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday] would defend having this book on his reading list," Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks told Carlson, promising to ask Gilday about the assignment during a congressional hearing.

The American military must have "the moral courage to include other perspectives and ideas into our decision making — perspectives that as the secretary himself noted Monday, are based on lived experience," Kirby continued. "It's that experience and the professionalism and commitment of our people that has always been our decisive advantage."

Kirby was responding to a segment on Carlson's Tuesday night program, in which the host contrasted the United States' approach to gender issues with China's.

Carlson offered criticism of an announcement from Biden that the military was preparing new body armor and flight suits for pregnant women, as well as updating hairstyle requirements. "It is going to take an intensity of purpose and mission to really change the culture and habits that cause women to leave the military," Biden said.

"While China's military becomes more masculine as it assembles the world's largest Navy, our military needs to become more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore because men and women no longer exist," Carlson said.

"What we absolutely won't do is take personnel advice from a talk show host or the Chinese military. Maybe those folks feel like they have something to prove — that's on them. We know we're the greatest military in the world today and even for all the things we need to improve, we know exactly why that's so," Kirby added.

A series of classified war games conducted by the Defense Department, most recently in 2020, found that the Chinese military consistently won in confrontations with the United States. "The trend in our war games was not just that we were losing, but we were losing faster," Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote told Yahoo News.

Carlson promised a response on his Thursday night show.

Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a double-amputee combat veteran, also criticized Carlson's remarks. "Happy belated International Women's Day to everyone but Tucker, who even I can dance better than," Duckworth tweeted.

Other top military officials echoed Kirby's remarks.

"His opinion, which he has a right to, is based off of actually zero days of service in the armed forces," Master Gunnery Sergeant Scott H. Stalker, the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US Space Command, said. "Let me tell you where he's wrong. Those decisions were made by medical professionals, by commanders, and by our civilian leadership. It allows women to have more time with their children, to recuperate, to get fit and ready, to take that time necessary that our medical professionals know is need, and actually makes us a more lethal, ready, and fit force."

The Department of Defense tweeted a video commemorating the service of women in the military, describing their actions as "history in the making."

Major General John R. Evans, the commander of the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps program, tweeted that "female soldiers have excelled in every component and every branch."

The US Army's official account sent nine tweets comprising the soldier's creed alongside various photos of women serving.

Acting Under-Secretary of the Army Christopher H. Lowman tweeted that women "contribute, sacrifice, and make us the world's premier fighting force."

The series was retweeted by CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

Four star Army General Paul Funk tagged Carlson in a tweet with a graphic of female soldiers, saying he would "be lucky to meet them."

Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston claimed that "women lead our most lethal units with character."

Vox reporter Aaron Rupar uncritically shared Kirby's comments.

CNN host Brianna Keilar said that Carlson should not talk about female soldiers, because "has not served a day in uniform." Keilar has not served in the military either.

MSNBC commentator and Bulwark editor Bill Kristol tweeted that Carlson's comments "denigrate[d] Americans serving our country.

A CNN article called the Defense Department's criticisms of Carlson "an extraordinary rebuke." It referred to Carlson as "the face of Fox," and called his segment sexist for "mock[ing] women serving in the armed forces."

The New York Daily News claimed that Carlson "went on a rant about women who serve their country."

The Military Times wrote that "traditional military culture subjugates and disenfranchises women," and Carlson was "seiz[ing] the moment... to drop some hot takes."

Reuters claimed that the segment "decried increasing numbers of female service members and suggested they were weakening the U.S. armed forces."

Carlson is a co-founder of the Daily Caller, but he sold his stock in the company in 2020.

Comment: RedState followed up, reporting on public reaction to the story:

Tucker Carlson earned the ire of some on the left for saying something truly radical: that maybe pregnant women should be involved in a combat zone/be fighting wars.

Now I suggested when I wrote about this story that perhaps they were trying to adjust flight suits for people that weren't actually going into combat, who perhaps were performing tasks on the ground. But then listen to their response, they don't even address the question raised about a heavily pregnant woman fighting, which was the question, they immediately claim the remarks are sexist and claimed he was mocking women in the military. Obviously the DOD authorized them to respond, in and of itself, unprecedented not to mention them factually being wrong.

[...]

As people observed, fighting with a Fox host and writing Buzzfeed headlines will really convince people that they're very professional and there isn't a problem here at all.

They're literally more antagonistic to a Fox host than they are to China, about whom they and we should be concerned.

But Tucker Carlson also noticed the story and will have a few things to say about their completely unprofessional response which basically proves the point he was making.

It should be a barn burner of a response, so break out the popcorn, it promises to be epic.

UPDATE: From RT:

Fox host Tucker Carlson returned fire after the Pentagon launched a "large and coordinated" PR blitz against his show over criticism that the military may be too "feminine," saying the DOD has no place attacking a US news outlet.

"Since when does the Pentagon declare war on a domestic news operation? I can't remember that ever happening," Carlson said on a segment of his show on Thursday night, adding "This is genuinely worrisome. The Department of Defense has never been more aggressively or openly political."

From The Post Millennial:

The US Marines attack Tucker Carlson, critics, forced to walk back comments with apologies
Ian Miles Cheong, March 14 2021

The US military has done more to discredit itself by attacking Fox News' Tucker Carlson than twenty years of military failures in the Middle East.

...

Following some back-and-forth on social media, the US Marines II MEF Information Group published its own statement to condemn Carlson, a civilian, with a photograph of a female soldier lifting another trooper on her back.

"What it looks like in today's armed forces @TuckerCarlson," remarked the official government account. "Get it right before you get left, boomer"

The military account followed up its remarks with an attack on critics who told it to "please focus on China and not Tucker Carlson," stating, "Come back when you've served and been pregnant." Numerous military veterans chimed in to condemn the military account following its remarks, prompting several apologies.